The Coastal Carbon Group is an interdisciplinary research
team within UNH-EOS
engaged in efforts to observe and model how the Earth’s
pool of carbon moves between the land, ocean, and atmosphere
– with a particular focus on how this carbon cycling
occurs in coastal regions such as our own Gulf of Maine.

Opportunities with the CCG for summer intern, undergraduate,
or graduate research are available by contacting Dr.
Joseph Salisbury, Dr.
Douglas Vandemark or other team
members. Enquiries are encouraged from students having
backgrounds and interests in computer programming, mathematics,
engineering, and/or the physical sciences. Our work is focused
on three research areas:

•

The role that coastal oceans play in changing atmospheric levels of carbon
dioxide (a greenhouse gas); including whether this CO2 exchange
is altered by land runoff carried to sea by rivers or by
the frequent occurrence of polluted low-level continental
air parcels traveling to the New England coastline from
the Mid-Atlantic states or the Midwest.

•

Understanding the processing of carbon as it travels
from upstream sites out into the Gulf of Maine- and how
this processing influences coastal ecosystems.

•

Using ocean viewing satellite data to detect and monitor
air-sea CO2 exchange along our coast and out to sea.

These topics are all directed at the long-term
societal need for more accurate prediction of climate change
and for determining how the ocean ecosystem of the Gulf
of Maine functions at time scales from weeks to years.